Thursday, September 9, 2010

Today was not a grateful day. It was a thoroughly-non-grateful-no-good-very-blah day. However, I was struck with a strange realization on my way home from Target (one of my favorite places, I must admit). I am obscenely grateful that I am not a telemarketer.

Think about it: within the years of my memory, there was a day when caller id didn't exist. We couldn't screen our calls. If somebody was calling that was annoying, you either had to put them off or become VERY good friends with your answering machine. Of course, some of the fun has been taken out of answering the phone -- kinda like what happened when all the traffic cams started going up. It took all the sport out of driving, something I highly resented. But I digress.

There is a wealth of wonderful methods for getting rid of telemarketers, methods that are sadly underused now in our caller id world. I enjoy my brother's technique particularly: whenever somebody would call, he'd howl into the phone like a Tuskan Raider. Then there's my sister's method, far more subtle but perhaps more effective and less likely for the men in white coats to be called out to the home. She just makes her voice sound even higher than normal and convinces the poor schmuck that she's not of age to make any household decisions.

My method is not as dramatic to a degree, but it is effective. I would find a convenient pot or pan, and when the telemarketer started asking questions, I'd drop it noisily and screech, "OH NO! (and possibly an expletive)" and hang up the phone with no further ado.

Then again, I think maybe I DO miss telemarketers now that I'm feeling all nostalgic about them....

Pseudo-Firebird

Out of the Ashes

In childhood, I was the butterflyBrightly colored, joyous, energeticI flitted from here to there, helter-skelterContent to be on the move, happy to be loved.Hues were vibrant, sounds beyond all description.The little bird, chirping merrily,Never caring whether I was on key or not.I was the butterfly.

Later, a blow came.The butterfly lost its wings. The joy left the world.The light went out, almost, but never quite.It kept going.I became the firefly then, a creature of the evening.The light was faint, sometimes going out,But always returning, never dying.Hope was faint, but it never left.

And today? What am I today?Today I became the phoenix.The layers of pain became a prison that could not hold me.The flames renewed, restored the joy.The journey has been long, but today the flight,The sky is worth it all.Bitterness, pain, resentment, I suddenly realizeHave led me to today.

Today, I became the phoenix.

--Katie Johnson

About Me

I am a music and book-loving Christian girl. So, basically just like eighty percent of the rest of the population. I majored in English and minored in psychology. I am also working on the world's first cliche free novel and going through withdrawal from sour gummy worms. I love to sing, take naps, have dinner with my friends and mock anything possible, particularly parades.

Phoenix Poems, Quotes, and Facts

"The phoenix, hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise."--Miquel de Cervates Saavedra

So often, we believe that we have come to a place that is void of hope and void of possibilities, only to find that it is the very hopelessness that allows us to hit bottom, give up our illusion of control, turn it over, and ask for help. Out of the ashesof our hopelessnesscomes the fire of our hope.--Anne Wilson Shaef

"The Phoenix became popular in early Christian art, literature and Christian symbolism, as a symbol of Christ, and further, represented the resurrection, immortality, and the life-after-death of Jesus Christ."

Like the mighty phoenix, Once again I rise from the flames set to destroy me & take flight. I am Stronger Glorious Powerful Victorious.--Kirsti A. Dyer, MD, MS

"It's best to have failure happen early in life. It wakes up the phoenix bird in you so you rise from the ashes."--Anne Baxter

"In Japan, as earlier in China, the mythical Phoenix was adopted as a symbol of the imperial household, particularily the empress. This mythical bird represents fire, the sun, justice, obedience, and fidelity."